Festival Popularity

I would like to know why there has been such a major increase in festival attendance in recent years. Glastonbury has been a regular fixture for music lovers since the 1970s. I went in 2000 and my memories, albeit slightly blurry, are amongst the best I have. However, my friends and I discussed over the course of months whether or not we wanted to go and eventually bought our tickets in mid-May for the June festival. Similarly my brother who was a Glasto regular for many years in the Nineties talks of buying his ticket, his weekend booze and travelling down to Somerset the day before the festival began.

There is no way this would ever happen now. Festivals are effectively selling out before the tickets are even released. T in the Park tickets go on sale for the following year the day after the festival ends. In fact, tickets are snapped up without so much as a hint of who will be playing. Now, we all know that Glastonbury, T in the Park, Reading, etc., practically guarantee a line-up to satisfy even the most discerning of music fans. Festival-goers are consistently faced with the headache of trying to choose between all of the amazing acts appearing on different stages at the same time.

Now I am not saying that the increase in popularity of festivals is necessarily a bad thing, I am just not convinced that it is actually about the music. I hear people discussing going to festivals and what they are going to wear...how drunk they’ll get...who’ll be there...how much fun they’ll have at the campsite... but the bands that they will see appears to be way down the list. Festivals in the past were the home of die-hard music fans who nowadays struggle to actually get tickets!